Family Environment and Intergenerational Mobility

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Families are crucial institutions for intergenerational mobility. Family values influence the acquisition of marketable skills by offspring. Family social and economic status affects both skill acquisition and the next generation's access to individuals embedded in positions of authority and power. It has been argued that differences in family and neighborhood characteristics are ultimately for increasing racial wage inequality that began in the early 1980s and that remains with us today. Researchers have also argued that ethnic and racial capital, that is, a demographic group's average level of social or economic wellbeing, interacts with parental and neighborhood socioeconomic status to determine intergenerational mobility. This research project unites the literature on family environment (that is, the combination of family values/behaviors and family socioeconomic status) and intergenerational inequality with an exploration of the nature and extent of racial and gender inequality. Accordingly, this paper investigates four questions. First, do childhood family values and family status matter for young adult social and economic outcomes? Second, does accounting for individual differences in childhood family environment eliminate racial and gender differences in the wellbeing of young adult workers? Third, does the relative importance of childhood family environment on young adult wellbeing vary across racial and gender groups? Four, are there racial and gender differences in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status? To answer these questions, the research project examines the impact of family values and family economic and social status on educational attainment, annual earnings, wealth (home value), and annual hours of employment for four race-sex groups: African American females and males, white females and males.